Updated July 9, 2026 at 9:18 AM EDT
MASAFER YATTA, West Bank — In the West Bank, a lunch date between Israelis and Palestinians is not the norm. They are, after all, on opposite sides of a relentless conflict. The setting for this gathering was stranger still — a Palestinian farmer hosting retired Israeli military officers inside his home, a cave in a remote corner of the territory.
The Palestinian man, Mohammed Abu Sabha, said back in January a group of Israeli settlers pulled up and beat him badly with clubs.
"Two cars came up and seven men jumped out and immediately started beating me up. I immediately lost consciousness. I only woke up in the hospital," said Abu Sabha, age 49, who suffered serious head and leg injuries.
His lunch guests include eight members of a group called Commanders for Israel's Security. They're former generals in the military or senior officers in other branches of the security forces. During their careers, they protected Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. In retirement, they're speaking out against Israel's rapidly expanding settlements and the attacks on Palestinians.
"What's happening in the West Bank is completely unacceptable from a human, Jewish, universal perspective," said Yoni Shimshoni, a retired Israeli brigadier general, who once served as a brigade commander in the West Bank.
A surge in West Bank attacks
The United Nations has documented more than 1,000 attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank in each of the past three years (2023-2025). This year the attacks are on pace to top 2,000. They include beatings and killings, damaging homes and cars, stealing livestock and cutting waterlines. Militant Palestinians also attack Jewish settlers, though not nearly as often.
The Israeli settlers are seizing land and erecting makeshift homes for themselves as part of an effort to expand the Jewish presence in the West Bank, land they say was promised to them by God.
They're also trying to drive out Palestinians like Abu Sabha. His family and others in these dry, dusty hills, an area known as Masafer Yatta, in the southern part of the territory, have turned caves into homes and lived in them for generations.
"All of my life I spent here in this cave, and my father before me. The family, sheep, and the donkey are all in one place," said Abu Sabha.
The rough walls and ceilings of the limestone cave are part of its natural formation. The floor has been smoothed out and covered with tile and carpets. There's electricity for lights and a refrigerator. There's a dining room table, mats for sleeping, and not a lot else. Abu Sabha and his wife have six children. The Abu Sabhas and other Palestinian families here eke out a living raising sheep, goats and in some cases growing wheat.
The conflict in this area was at the center of the film, No Other Land, which won the Oscar in 2025 for Best Documentary.
Due to the increasing attacks by Jewish settlers, Abu Sabha installed a security camera, which provided video evidence of the January assault.
"When you tell police, they need evidence," he said.
He told the Israeli police, and presented the video, but said he has not received a response.
Editor's note: This video contains graphic scenes of violence.
Decades of settlement building
Settlements have been going up in the West Bank since Israel captured the land in the 1967 Mideast War. Nearly 10% of Israel's entire Jewish population, or roughly 750,000, now live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas the Palestinians claim for a future state.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition is considered the most pro-settlement government in Israel's history.
"With God's help, we have been leading a revolution in Judea and Samaria. From the last Independence Day to this Independence Day, we have approved 75 new communities," Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said recently. Many Israelis use the biblical name for the West Bank, Judea and Samaria.
Human rights groups say this strong government support has made the settlers more aggressive, yet they're rarely prosecuted for attacks. In addition, the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which erupted nearly three years ago, has diverted attention from the West Bank.
Ex-military officers speak out
Shimshoni, the retired brigadier general, recalled a moment in the late 1980s when he was a brigade commander in the West Bank. A reporter asked him what was the hardest part of his job.
"The toughest moment for me is when I come into a Palestinian community. The kids look at me and they start to cry because I represent force and occupation and power," Shimshoni said.
The journalist quoted Shimshoni in a story. A few days later, he made his weekly visit to nearby Jewish settlers. They had read the article, and now considered him too sympathetic to the Palestinians.
They told him, "You're just not welcome here. At which point I realized that the problem had several layers and that it was going to be really difficult to solve," he said.
Today, he sees Israel's settlements and occupation of the West Bank as undermining any potential peace effort with the Palestinians. As a result, he considers this the country's most challenging security problem, more so than Iran, or Hezbollah in Lebanon, or Hamas in Gaza.
The West Bank, he said, "is existentially the most dire threat to the future of Israel as a liberal, democratic, Jewish, secure state."
Another retired general, Mendy Or, organized the West Bank visit by the former officers. He says many Israelis are simply in denial about what's happening.
"It's become a code of silence, a wall of silence. People are ignoring the situation," said Or.
In his final military posting, from 1997-2001, Or led the agency that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs. At that time, Israelis and Palestinians were trying to negotiate a comprehensive peace deal that proposed removing at least some settlements.
But the talks failed, and the settlements just keep getting bigger.
"It's taking us to it to a dirty place, to a dirty situation, which no democratic country should be. And therefore, we have to do whatever we can do," said Or.
Inside the cave, the Palestinian man, Abu Sabha serves Or and the other retired generals a lunch of chicken and saffron rice. He thanks them for visiting, and for speaking up.
As the generals leave, an Israeli military helicopter flies overhead on a training mission, a pointed reminder of life in the West Bank.
Copyright 2026 NPR
